For those who know me one of my true loves is poker. For those that have no interest in poker this blog may bore you as it contains some poker tales and terminology. I played a lot of poker back in Ireland and when coming to Australia I was worried that I would never get to play (other than paying a fortune in the casinos). Though to my great delight they have a poker league here run by APL (Australian Poker League) so I instantly signed up. The idea you play every week and the higher you get placed in the daily tournaments the more points you get to a leader board where you can then win prizes and chances to play in the big tournaments. I played twice a week in the Brass Monkey, Northbridge & 43 Below (formerly known as Bar on Barracks) in the city centre.
Every quarter there is a regional tournament for the city of perth where 1st prize will get you a ticket to the million$ tournament in Melbourne (+$500).
The night that I entered there was a10$ buy in with just under 200 people were playing. I started positively winning more hands than loosing, listening to a guy at my table bragging about his time when he played in the WSOP and had a bad beat on the river (the usual bullsh*t). If I hear another bad beat story I will punch someone. The night progressed with players getting knocked out around me and started dreaming about winning and qualifying for the big tournament (1st of which is $250,000). I made it to the last 16 (money places) and was still healthy but nervous as there were some great players still playing. After 3 hours of poker and knocking out 6 players I made it to the final table. 7 people stand between me and my prize. I played very conservatively only entering a few pots with good hands. One hand I won I had quad 5’s almost doubling my stack thank you very much. As the game continued the numbers dropped until there were only 2 left, it was heads up. Me and another guy from England. Nervous times especially when you have people surrounding you watching your every move and talking about your play. On the second hand dealt I was given an AK suited (a great hand in disguise, often referred to as the Anna Kournikova, it looks great but doesn’t play well). I raised heavily before the flop and was re-raised with an all in from my rival. I called it and turned my cards over. He had pocket 9’s. It was now a race to 1st place. He had 52% chance of winning and I had 48%. Then came the flop 4, Q, 6, the river 7 and the turn a 10. I lost! Noooooo! I did get $250 for coming 2nd but it still hurts.
The kick in the balls came when the guy who won told me he couldn’t go to Melbourne as he was going home, which means the ticket becomes null and void. All I could think was you prick!
Stephen
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